TV and Me

I mentioned once before that my mom is the one who got me so into watching TV. We haven’t always been big TV watchers. TV has changed a lot in the last 15 years, gaining more popularity as time passed. Growing up, my dad watched more TV, but he has always been into Discovery/History channel shows. My mom has always been a reader, reading usually a book a week. And me, I was a total tomboy.

I was lucky enough to grow up in a neighborhood of kids my age, mostly boys, and in a time where playing outside from sunup to sundown normal. I spent my days playing kickball learning how to skateboard with the boys. My dad got me into playing video games at an early age; we had a Super Nintendo and would often play Super Mario and other games. I never really cared for anything on TV besides the occasional cartoon, but I’ve always loved to tell stories; writing became an interest at a young age. I used to make up stories and poems, and I loved to perform for my parents.

In 2004, when Lost first premiered, I had zero interest in watching it. My mom told me there was a new show starting about a plane crash on an island that looked really good and she wanted me to watch it with her. I declined, and she threatened to ground me if I didn’t watch it with her (she was half-joking…she wasn’t that mean). So I ended up watching it, and I got super into it. Even after that though, I still didn’t watch much else. I tried to get into a few others at the time, Fringe and Heroes, but I had a hard time committing to watching them weekly and fell behind. Lost was the only thing that kept my interest.

Fast forward to the last few years…my mom has watched basically every popular show on air from the start: Breaking Bad, Sons of Anarchy, Walking Dead, Game of Thrones, Dexter, etc. I still didn’t watch anything, because I spent all of my time with my friends. After all of my closest friends joined the military and moved away, I had a lot more free time (not to say they were my only friends, but I spent every day with them prior to them leaving). Netflix had become increasingly popular with streaming TV shows, so I started to catch up on all of these shows that my mom and the whole internet was going crazy over.

Now, as you all know, I watch a lot of TV. Some people might see this as being lazy or me having too much free time, but that isn’t true. I’m not just sitting around watching TV all day. I go to school full-time and work almost 30 hours a week. I do other things besides watch TV: I love to go hiking and spend time outdoors, I go to the movies with my friends, and I play video games. I spend a lot of time on the internet, and I even read from time to time. TV isn’t my only interest, but it is a big part of me. The writing that goes into today’s shows is incredible; the stories being told are enthralling and the characters are so real, you actually care about them. It’s fun to get lost in another world. For some people, reading is their way of doing that. For others, it’s movies. For me, it’s TV.